


Silence

by Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)



Category: Copenhagen
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-03
Updated: 2009-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/pseuds/Miri%20Cleo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Margrethe reflects on Heisenberg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Azpidestra in the Yuletide 2008 challenge.
> 
> The characters and concepts belong to Michael Frayn.

Silence.

What was he thinking about when he lay next to me? His skin was warm, glowing and all the more young in the lamplight. I was all at once aware that I was aging, but I could never say as much to him, to either of them. It would become something to explain, something to solve. I was content to let it be one of those things...the things of which we never speak.

The house was always full of sounds, the sounds of the children—sounds both real and imagined—and of Neils’ and Heisenberg’s voices. They spoke when they were thinking and thought when they were speaking. And I listened. I listen to their rows just as I listened to their footsteps when they returned that night in 1941—Neils’ quicker than normal and Heisenberg’s deliberately spaced.

They were father and son still, even that night. They were father and son just as much as they were lovers. Heisenberg’s eyes were still bright. They were bright when he lay beside me and stared upwards, into the darkness of the ceiling, into thoughts and space and mathematics that he would speak of with my husband on one of their walks or when he was lying in his arms.

But time did not disappear so quickly for Heisenberg and I. There was silence between us even then. He knew he maddened me. Perhaps that is why we did not speak. The day we went to bed together, his eyes were clouded with surprise. Neils’ and I spoke of everything, but we only needed to speak of Heisenberg himself. There was never any uncertainty in the rest, not for me.

What they had did not anger me or give rise to jealousy. It was what Heisenberg took from Neils, the way he pushed and pulled like an eager child. He wanted all of Neils...all of his affection, his attention. He grabbed and snatched with his words, but when he touched me, he did so carefully, uncertain of what each kiss would bring him.

Silence.

Even when I left his bed, he watched me dress, eyes brighter still. He knew then that I would not come back. He was at ease again.


End file.
